By Nicole Montesano • Staff Writer • 

Report: Changed climate may look a lot like 2015 - only worse

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Comments

Joel

When it come to climate change, I find myself persuaded to view it as the late Charles Krauthammer did.
He said: "I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’ve long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30 or 50 years are white-coated propagandists."
Krauthammer (who has a doctorate from Harvard) goes on to explain that it is quite arrogant and frankly unscientific to assert that we humans know with certainty what is going on with something as vast as the climate of our planet. So if there are some things we can do to cut down on emissions etc, lets do it. But let's also quit running around claiming the sky is falling every time we have a forest fire or a flood.
Here is a link to his essay https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html?utm_term=.fb8c8cabe637

tagup

Seems to me that warming is indeed happening... although the exact cause and consequences cannot be accurately pinpointed...The concern I have is that without some sense of urgency,no substantial changes will ever take place.Business & government(s) will do little if there is no benefit to the bottom line....By then, I'm afraid, it will be too late to have much impact.....

Don Dix

The title -- Report: Changed climate 'may' look a lot like 2015 - only worse.
The article uses words words such as 'may', 'likely', 'if', etc. Those are hedge words used to cover an array of possibilities -- hardly a report of fact or confidence.

Phil Mote was brought to Oregon State simply because his predecessor, George Taylor, did not share the belief humans cause climate change, and often said so. Gov. Kulongoski did not like those denials (it didn't fit the taxing scheme), so out goes George. And soon after, Oregon ends up with a carbon tax.

Claiming a '30 year average' is the bar by which to measure? The Earth is billions of years old, and using a sample size of 30 years is useless, unless the hype is more important than the truth. Read up on the Dust Bowl of 1931, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and the Roman Warm Period. All occurred in the last 2000 years and temps fluctuated 4+ degrees either way. Apparently those recorded historical events can't sell the hype, so are not even considered in the claims of 'hottest ever'.

And lastly, the temp readings around the region at any given time vary, especially in the mornings and evenings. Portland might have a reading of 55 degrees, while the surrounding reports (40 mile radius) are 5 - 10 degrees cooler. Now which area temp would you use as the average if you wanted to sell the warming claim? An area temperature report will prove the numbers vary widely.

Mike

Ice core have shown and 800,000 year record of carbon dioxide linked with earth's climate changes. Because of the global scope of the emissions there is no realistic solution. As the old song says "what will be will be." We've live the good life. Small cars aren't selling because we're buying those monster pick ups and suvs, we like to stay warm, and all the great things about being 5 percent of the world population consuming the lion's share of the world's resources. And now China with a billion people is catching up. I feel sorry for our great great grandchildren. They will pay the price for our good life.

Treehouse

Joel, the authors of this latest report relied on the modeling data that gave the highest confidence interval. Depending on the scenario assumptions the report authors studied an array of potential outcomes, some where carbon outputs go negative, and some where outputs continue to grow. The regional model authors also made every effort to discuss multiple scenarios over a range of potential outcomes.

The very unfortunate fact is that based on the observed increases in carbon output over the last two decades some of the highest output scenarios gave the highest confidence intervals. We don't know with "certainty". And this report makes no such claim. But it does state probability of impacts based on those high confidence interval carbon emissions.

We can "choose" to count on some kind of "luck" that something unforseen happens to drastically reduce carbon outputs - although that sounds ominous. We can "choose" to accept a future with these kinds of predictable climate effects and let future generations face that struggle. But unfortunately the one thing we can not "choose" is for these high probability increases in carbon additions to our planet's atmosphere to somehow leave the climate unchanged.

Don Dix

Mike -- China's output of carbon emissions is double that of the US (29%+ of total). The US has the highest per capita.

Water vapor, the most significant greenhouse gas, comes from natural sources and is responsible for roughly 95% of the greenhouse effect. Among climatologists this is common knowledge but among special interests, certain governmental groups, and news reporters this fact is under-emphasized or just ignored altogether. How convenient!

Human contributions to total greenhouse effect add up to 0.28%, and 0.117% of the greenhouse effect is due to atmospheric CO2 from human activity.

Kyoto calls for a 30% reduction of CO2 from developed countries. Such drastic measures, even if imposed equally on all countries around the world, would reduce total human greenhouse contributions of CO2 by about 0.035%. The natural variations of the Earth's climate system is larger than those reductions could produce. Doesn't that raise pertinent questions of cause and effect related to any warming (or cooling) observed?

"There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050." Dr. S. Fred Singer -- atmospheric physicist -
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service.

Mike

Don. China has only double our emissions. They're have three times our population. They'll catch up, along with India's billion people, and others. The emissions continue to clime. The Earth's burning of carbon resources is currently cheap and is being used accordingly. Modelling suggests at the present rate of emission increases from all sources, the historical record based on core samples some serious climate changes will disrupt our ecosystems, human and agricultural locations. Just modelling. Could be wrong. But our measuring ability these days is very detailed which makes modelling pretty predictable. Like I said before. It is a global issue. The solution is out of our hands even if we had the will to try to do something about it. I'm sad. I'm closer to 80 years old than 70 and I feel my generation lived by "Laissez les bons temps rouler!"= Let the good time role! At this point why not? We can't do much about it now. To think disruptive climate change will not happen and that our human behavior is not at fault is a denial of the obvious, as heart wrenching as that is.

Don Dix

Mike -- Here is an example of the how the truth gets lost in the hype.
The other gov. Brown (Calif.) made comments about how he believed GW has been responsible for the devastating fires lately, while acknowledging better forest management would have helped. What he didn't say is that downed power lines sparked the Camp Fire. In fact, 17 of the last 21 fires in Calif. began with down power lines, but it's GW's fault. Seriously!

Unless you have been a tree-hugger, you are not to blame. The environmental lobby has successfully banned cleaning up of national forests all over the west. The fuel for extremely hot blazes is not the standing trees, but the underbrush and deadfall lying on the forest floor.

The Native Americans knew a clean forest floor would lessen the chance of wildfire, and burned the underbrush on a regular basis. That yearly burning improved hunting ability, as well as promoting new growth annually. Locally, the Tillamook Burn was ablaze 3 times in the 30s and 40s, but proper management has quieted that area since.

With all the education, computer models, and so-called critical thinkers on the job, the simplest of solutions has been completely overlooked to push a flawed hypothesis (GW). The mantra is designed to 'scare' the population into compliance and reliance on the government to solve this -- and the solution is to levy a carbon tax. Right!

Plants are Mother Nature's atmospheric CO2 scrubbers (and they release oxygen), and yet we put the very solution at risk by not keeping the forests clean of underbrush (and the trees alive). And how much Carbon is released when the forests burn? Doesn't that say more about what the alarmists wish to purvey, and little about a real solution?

Mike

Don. That's it. No argument that a politician will spin a problem and point blame. The thing is there are no solutions. It's too late. Let the good times role. Those predictive models based on the detailed date now available could be completely wrong. Probably the majority of scientists are part of a global conspiracy. I personally don't think so. Modeling is very very sophisticated and getting better every day. Our great great grandchildren may likely thanks us for consuming all the earth's resources and dumping a lot of carbon in their lives. Maybe I shouldn't, because I'm a just a dupe of the conspirators, but I think they will blame us for their misery.

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